1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to glass to be used for forming barrier ribs for e.g. a plasma display panel (PDP) by firing, and PDP.
2. Discussion of Background
In recent years, attention has been drawn to PDP as a large size thin flat plate color display device. PDP has a structure wherein many cells (fine discharge spaces) are formed as partitioned by barrier ribs between a pair of glass substrates, phosphors are provided on the surface of the respective cells, and a discharge gas is filled in such cells. Discharge takes place between electrodes in the cells to excite the discharge gas to let the phosphors in the ground state emit lights by ultraviolet rays thereby generated, to form pixels. Such PDP is a self emitting type flat display and has excellent characteristics such as wide horizontal and vertical view-angle and being thin and light in weight, and further, it can be made to have a large size. Thus, it is one of the most prospective display devices.
The materials for forming such barrier ribs are desired to be one which can be fired at a low temperature such as at most 615° C., preferably at most 600° C., to prevent deformation of the glass substrates. Heretofore, as such a material, glass containing a large amount of lead oxide (PbO) or bismuth oxide (Bi2O3) as a component to lower the softening point, has been used.
In recent years, glass for forming barrier ribs which contains neither PbO nor Bi2O3 or which contains no PbO and does not contain Bi2O3 in a large amount, is desired, and a ZnO—B2O3—SiO2 type glass (e.g. Patent document 1) or a ZnO—B2O3—BaO type glass (e.g. Patent document 2) has, for example, been proposed.                Patent document 1: JP-A-2001-130926        Patent document 2: JP-A-11-228178        